


O, Swear Not By the Moon

by EchoResonance



Category: No. 6 (Anime & Manga)
Genre: M/M, Reunion, Shakespeare
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-05-28 15:10:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6333895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoResonance/pseuds/EchoResonance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When shall we three meet again in thunder, lightning, or in rain? When the hurlyburly's done, When the battle's lost and won." (Act I, Scene I)</p><p>Two winters had come and gone since the wall of No. 6 were destroyed, and Nezumi doesn't know how time may have changed him or Shion, but he's prepared to find out. He's ready to face Shion as he is and in doing so face himself, because even though vulnerability had always terrified him, he found in his time away that it was what he was searching for and could not find, because he'd left it with a kiss and a promise to meet again.<br/>INDEFINITE HIATUS</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Now is the Winter of Our Discontent

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shadowcall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowcall/gifts).



_Nezumi…_

Shion’s voice had been haunting me. I had no need to keep track of time, of the days and weeks and surely the months that had passed since I started walking with my back to the remains of No. 6, and the one good thing that had even happened to me. Years must have passed, or at least two winters, but I wasn’t sure. All I knew was the ache in my heart and the soft whisper haunting me wherever I went, poisoning my sleep and coloring every thought that went through my mind.

Phantom touches to my arms and cheek and neck, the ghost of an embrace that could only remind me of a warmth I had felt once and longed for even though it scared me. Slim fingers in my hair and a feather-light brush against my lips woke me from my sleep more often than not and found me bolting upright, heart pounding as I looked around wildly. Every night, however, I found myself as alone as the night before, and it took me a very long time to find restless sleep again.

I was afraid. I was afraid of what I felt, afraid of the presence I couldn’t break free from but equally afraid that one day that very same presence might at last fade away. The prospect of caring, of having that precious and fragile thing to protect was real enough to steal my breath and bring me to my knees, and I understood that Shion would probably always scare me both because of his unpredictability--the rare side to him I had seen, the side ready to defend to the death what he cared about—and because of the way he had broken me down. He had done it so easily, not so much sneaking past my walls as tearing them down, and I hadn’t even realized until he stood in front of me, his warm hand caressing my neck, and I was frozen, unable to believe that I had let him so close and left myself so vulnerable. It was terrifying, and I didn’t know if I hated it, loved it, or was caught somewhere in between, but I did know this: I didn’t want to lose it. It was all I had, all that gave me courage to face the rest of my life.

No matter where I went he was there, there in the children running and laughing in the street, there in the dusty bookshops tucked between Macbeth and Hamlet, there in the wild dogs that seemed far more threatening than they turned out to be and there in the beautiful plants that would kill anyone foolish enough to mistake them for food. He was there in the flowers that grew along the side of dirt roads and in the middle of green clearings, violet petals taunting me. He was everywhere.

Even without the pain that once tied me to No. 6, it seemed I couldn’t be truly free. I had been given a new tether, and yeah, it was my fault and I tied it myself, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t annoying. He was annoying. And I missed him.

With all that time to pine, I really should’ve been able to come up with an actual plan for returning to No. 6. Or whatever they were calling it now. Well, when it came to Shion, I always did have a tendency to throw “should” out of the highest window. For some reason enjoyed watching the sentiment tumble and shatter against the ground when that idiot was concerned, because I probably “should” have killed him when we first met, I probably “should” have left him to the mercy of the No. 6 authorities, I probably “should” have done a lot of things to make my life easier. But I had never wanted easy at Shion’s expense before, so I guess it wasn’t a surprise that this time was no different. It was one of those things about me that clearly hadn’t changed.

I’d been nervous as I began the trek back to Shion. My stomach was in knots and my heart was pounding like an old steam engine, but I was no longer scared. With the fall of No. 6 I had felt the hatred in my heart die, and in the time that I had spent away I had matured, finding courage in ordinary things and taking comfort in the smile embedded in my mind. The world didn’t scare me anymore, not in the same way, and even if the pain Shion caused my heart made a part of me want to curl in on myself and hide, I was no longer petrified by the idea of knowing someone, and of them knowing me.

When at last I found myself on the outskirts of what I remembered to be ruins, I couldn’t shake the sliver of unease that ran through me. Changed or not, this was where No. 6 once stood, and yes the wall had fallen and people were living real, honest lives, but I could feel its ghost even now, and it made me question myself.

What exactly was I doing there? What did I want to find, what did I _expect_ to find? I’d learned that life was fleeting and love fickle from books, learned that time in and of itself can change a lot of things regardless of how people fought it. My feelings hadn’t faded the way I once feared they would, but I was me, and Shion was Shion, and I had been gone for a very long time. He might have— _should_ have—moved on. He had a life, a real life built by him and only him upon people close to his heart. Showing up now, like this...would I be merely an intruder trespassing on his happy world?

I had loved him. I still did, and always would, and it was what made my decision to leave as painful and as necessary as it was, because we both needed to grow before we made any more mistakes and hurt each other again. By the end of it all, I felt confident that Shion loved me as well. But…

“Time heals all wounds.” What bullshit. Some things were only made worse the longer they were left. I knew leaving had hurt Shion, but he’d had other responsibilities, other people to look after, and I figured he would be fine. I told him as much. But I’d also promised to come back, and he’d believed in me then like he always had. What had he thought as the time dragged on, longer and longer? Had he given up on me, found someone else to love, someone who could be there when he needed them, who could be _what_ he needed? Time didn’t heal, but it did change.

Had it changed Shion? Had it changed me?


	2. This Above All: To Thine Own Self Be True

I was hiding in an alley. The ground beneath me and the wall behind me were warm from the early summer sun, but I barely noticed. My arms were wrapped around my knees and my face was buried in them, and I couldn’t hear past the blood roaring in my ears.

I’d seen him. Of course I had—I’d been waiting outside the building that served both as his mother’s home and bakery. It wasn’t likely he was still living with Karan, but I hadn’t thought to send any of the rats out to find out where he was staying, so it was the only lead I had. I had been sensible enough to wait a few buildings down, sitting unobtrusively on the bench there while I waited, but I hadn’t planned on remaining unseen. Once Shion appeared, I was planning on making myself known. However, I had sort of counted on him being alone or with his mother, so when he made his leisurely way into view with a small child at his hip, I was momentarily confused into inaction. His hand was curled around the young boy’s and he was smiling softly down at him, nose crinkling.

My heart squeezed.

He’d grown taller, lost some of the childish roundness to his cheeks though his face was still soft and kind. His shaggy white hair curled gently around his ears and neck, and that red mark on his cheek still peaked out. He was wearing khakis and a dark blue polo that stood in stark contrast against his fair skin.

He was as beautiful as ever.

“Shion,” the child said. “Can we go to the park again tomorrow?”

“Maybe,” Shion said, swinging their hands back and forth. “If you behave for Mother tonight.”

I swallowed, finding a harsh lump in my throat at the sound of Shion’s voice. It was different; lower and a little rough, like he might have been recovering from a cough. Or had I simply forgotten the sound of it?

The child looked up, eyes wide and innocent.

“Shi _ooon,_ ” he wheedled, tugging insistently on the hand he held. “Come oooon!”

“H-hey,” Shion said. “I said maybe, not no!”

“But you always say maybe when you’re busy,” the boy grumbled.

Shion’s smile softened, and he sighed.

“Nezumi…”

I stiffened, fingers clenched around the edge of the bench painfully tight. Had he seen me? Had he _recognized_ me, even though my face was shadowed by my hood? But he hadn’t even looked up at me, so how?

Shion crouched down so that he could pluck the boy off the ground; the boy went easily, wrapping his skinny arms around the young man’s neck. As his legs wrapped around Shion’s waist, Shion slid an arm around his back to keep him steady. The way I remembered him, he wouldn’t have been strong enough to do even that simple act, though I had a habit of selling him short even back then.

“We can’t always get everything we want all the time,” Shion said, reaching up with his free hand to ruffle the boy’s hair. “Sometimes you have to compromise, Nezumi.”

My breath caught in my throat.

“No fair…” the boy pouted.

“Life’s not always fair,” Shion said. “But honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

He chuckled quietly and carried the boy to the door of his home, fumbling for the door handle for a full thirty seconds before he caught a hold of it and managed to pull the door open. The smell of sugar and baking bread, already sneaking out onto the street, wafted out full-force then. Shion had smelled like that when I’d first saved him from being taken to the correctional facility, fresh from the bakery as he himself had been.

Before he could get inside, a young girl bounded out and ran almost headlong into him. Her brown hair was tied back in a short ponytail and the yellow dress she wore was covered in flour and something purple and wet that looked like jam. She looked up at Shion with a cheerful smile and clasped her hands behind her back.

“Shion!” she greeted.

“Oh, hello Lili! Are you helping Mom again?”

“Yeah!”

“How are you helping?” the boy in Shion’s arms said shrewdly. “You look like you’re wearing the bakery!”

The girl, Lili, flushed with embarrassment and stuck her tongue out, then reached out and caught Shion’s free hand in hers and began tugging him inside.

“C’mon!” she urged. “We made some blackberry pinwheels, come try them!”

“Okay, okay, I’m coming,” Shion said.

I was gone before the door swung shut behind them, tearing down the street past strangers that I didn’t bother looking at. The buildings passed by me in blurs as I hurtled away, and I only ducked into an alley when my breath was coming in ragged pants and I could go no farther.

That child...He was the infant that Shion had saved during the Man Hunt so long ago. He hadn’t had any kind of identification on him when Shion had sent him to Dogkeeper, nothing with a name or age. I hadn’t thought about it then, but I guess I should have realized Shion would take it upon himself to care for the orphan. Clothe it, feed it, care for it. Name it.

What was I doing? Hiding in the shadows after a single shock like nothing had changed and I was still that stupid, scared, trembling rat I had been.

He named the child after me. Shouldn’t I have been happy? Or should I have been afraid that it was his way of replacing me? Though I wanted to believe that it was good, a sign that he was still waiting for my return and that I would be welcomed back, it was hard to buy into that. I don’t think I’d ever been all that adept at reading Shion, though I liked to pretend he was an open book to me, and it was hard, so very hard to imagine such a bright and honest person to care for me. To miss me. To…

I shook my head furiously and grit my teeth. My hands fell to the ground beneath me and I pushed myself up, looking around once I was back on my feet. I had come this far, and I wouldn’t turn back now. I’d made my choice and, as always, it was Shion. More than life, more than freedom, more than revenge, my decision was violet wildflowers and snowy hair and crimson eyes and a bright, transparent smile. If I went the distance and found out that Shion hadn’t chosen me, I would be crushed, but at least then I could figure out where to go from there. I would have a definite answer. My choice was made and all that was left was to follow through and find out of Shion’s was as well.


	3. Tempt Not a Desperate Man

His apartment wasn’t far from Karan’s, and it was there that Cravat led me and there that I waited impatiently for Shion’s return. Well, the street below the apartment, anyway. I wasn’t about to greet him by breaking into his room and giving him a heart attack.  _ That _ would probably piss him off, and a pissed-off Shion, while rare, was truly terrifying.

The sun had sunk by the time a light flickered on in Shion’s room, but I didn’t have time to do more than stand from the bench I’d been sitting on when the balcony door was flung open. Out stepped Shion, and even looking up at a second-story balcony I saw how tired he looked, shoulders slumped and head bowed, hair hanging to shadow his face. Cravat perked up on my shoulder at the sight of him.

I watched, tense and silent, as the boy shuffled toward the railing of the balcony, curling his fingers around the dark metal and throwing his head back to stare at the sky. In the early moonlight, his hair gleamed brighter than any streetlamp, starlight made into thread. I swallowed, and started to move forward when a sound made me freeze, the hairs on the back of my neck standing straight up.

Shion screamed. He screamed long and loud up at the cloudless sky and I stared transfixed. His eyes were screwed shut, his knuckles gripped the rail before him tightly, and his shoulders trembled with the weight of his cry. Unbidden, a night from lifetimes ago surfaced from my memories. A night where I stood in the shadow of trees, arm bleeding, and watched a boy shriek into the winds of a howling storm. The night my entire world shifted and my life took a turn for the better. But this night was calm, and his voice cut through the still air like blades, and just when it seemed like he would run out of breath and simply pass out, he fell silent for the barest moment to breathe and then screamed again. He screamed and he screamed and he screamed, and I continued to look on, my heart pounding and my ears roaring almost loud enough to drown out the noise Shion was making.

Hours could have passed, or minutes, but I didn’t know or care. All I knew was that suddenly the night fell silent again and Shion slumped forward, collapsing against the railing with his shoulders heaving. Standing where I was, unseen and watching a figure above me release their frustration, was oddly reminiscent of my time acting in West Block.

A thought crossed my mind, and a smile curved my lips unbidden. I stepped forward, directly into a circle of yellow light thrown onto the pavement by a streetlamp. Head hidden in the arms clinging to the railing, of course he didn’t see me. But as clueless and unobservant as he was, even he couldn’t miss my voice.

“ _ But, soft! _ ” I gasped in a whisper meant to carry. Shion stiffened. “ _ What light through yonder window breaks? _ ”

The man above me jerked upright, whipping around wildly in a frantic and entirely pointless search. I resisted the urge to laugh.

“ _ It is the east _ ,” I murmured, touching my hand to my heart. Shion’s gaze fell to the street, locking onto mine, and my voice softened with my expression. “ _ And Juliet is the sun _ .”

“Nezu...mi?” Shion croaked.

I cocked an eyebrow and offered him a sweeping bow.

“Your Majesty,” I said.

He gave me no warning, which wouldn’t have been a problem since that wasn’t his custom except that he was leaping from the second story, completely forgoing the stairs that were right. Fucking.  _ There _ .

“H-hey!” I exclaimed, lunging forward with my arms outstretched to catch him before he broke his own neck. “Watch it you idiot!”

“Nezumi!” he shouted, and his voice cracked on the second syllable even though he slammed into me on the third. 

I staggered back, arms around his torso, but managed to keep us both upright on the side of the street by sheer virtue of how light he was. Even after all that time, he was still alarmingly thin. Shion lashed his arms around me and buried his face in my neck, tightening his hold when I gingerly tried to push him back.

“Nezumi,” he said again, lips dragging across my throat. “Nezumi, you’re here, right? You’re here?”

I hesitated, then sighed and reached up with one hand to wrap my hand around the nape of his neck.

“Obviously,” I scoffed, but the word got caught in my throat and came out choked.

His arms tightened, and I bowed my neck to rest my forehead against his shoulder, carding my fingers through his hair and tightening my hold on his waist.

It was Shion who pulled back first and I reluctantly let him, my hand falling out of his hair. He blinked up at me with wide, damp eyes that made me all too aware of the way my own were stinging. The arms around my waist slowly fell away, taking their warmth with them, and Shion’s hands rose to curl around the edges of my open jacket.

“Nezumi…” he whispered.

I raised an eyebrow at him and sat a hand on his hip, tugging him closer and touching my forehead to his. The tips of our noses just barely brushed.

“Shion?” I breathed.

With my free hand I touched his cheek, cradling his jaw and stroking my thumb over his cheek, sliding back and forth over the head of his snake-like scar. His lips curved up slightly and he leaned into my palm. I chuckled.

“Miss me?” I teased.

“I did,” Shion said without hesitation. “So much. Every day I missed you more.”

I blinked. Then an amused snort tore from my throat and I turned away before I knocked our foreheads together, laughing in disbelief.

“What’s so funny?” Shion said, fingers tugging on my jacket. “Hey, don’t laugh at me!”

“How can I not?” I demanded, fighting to contain my amusement. “You’re still as bad with words as ever! How can you be so stupidly honest?”

“Well I’m sorry for being honest!” Shion snapped. I glanced over at him and even in the dim poor lighting the color in his cheeks was evident. “I  _ missed _ you.”

I sighed and rolled my eyes.

“Of course you did,” I said with a smirk. 

“I suppose  _ you _ were enjoying your alone time,” Shion grumbled petulantly, looking away. His hands fell back to his sides.

My amusement faded and I tugged him against me, touching the spot beneath his chin to guide his face back around. He followed me easily as he always had and looked up at me, making a small noise at the achingly serious expression on my face.

“No, Shion,” I murmured, leaning down until our lips just barely brushed as I spoke. “I didn’t enjoy a minute of it.”

The kiss was short, but that was more than okay. His lips slotted easily with mine and he lifted his hands to cradle my face. Callouses scraped against my skin, but I was too distracted to make note of them. He let out a breathy sigh when I tangled my fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck and the noise sent a shudder down my spine.

I pulled back slightly and leaned my forehead against his, not moving the hand in his hair or the one at his waist. His hands lowered to curl around the back of my neck.

“Let’s go inside,” I suggested.

“Yeah,” he murmured.

We dropped our arms from the tangle they’d become and Shion stepped back, but he caught my hand before he turned to guide me up the stairs to the balcony. His hand was small in mine, but his grip was firm. I followed easily, lips curved in a small smile.

“It’s—it’s just a studio,” he said when we reached the landing. “I mean, there’s a bathroom, but…”

“Shion, don’t be stupid,” I scoffed. “I’m sure it’s fine.”

He gave me a small smile, then led me through the still open door and into his brightly lit apartment. 

It took my eyes a moment to adjust to the new lighting, but once they did I liked what I saw. It reminded me vividly of where I’d lived in West Block and the time, brief though it was, that Shion had lived with me there. The setup wasn’t exactly as it had been there—with the balcony and the decidedly more welcoming surroundings, that was a given—but the atmosphere felt very familiar. The balcony doorway and the front door faced each other across the room, and to our left a twin bed was tucked into the nearest corner like a decorator’s afterthought. A long couch was pressed against the opposite wall with a short table on either end, and a small kitchenette sat in the far corner on the right. Every would-be-bare inch of the walls was blocked by bookcases overflowing with tomes, some of which were thin while others looked like they could outweigh Shion, and some bindings dull and nondescript while others were elaborated decorated with gold filigree or scarlet flowers or a kaleidoscope of jumbled shapes. A short dresser sat against the foot of the bed, two drawers tall and two drawers wide, and a door on the same wall stood ajar. I assumed it led to the aforementioned bathroom.

“It’s kind of a mess…” Shion said, scratching the back of his neck. “I, uh, haven’t been here much lately.”

“No kidding,” I said with no heat. “You’re supposed to keep the books on the shelves—that’s why they exist.”

Books were scattered across every available surface. Some sat open to pages filled with small type, some were closed and stacked on top of each other, their titles partially visible and written in elaborate font. Loose leafs of paper were protruding from a fair number of tomes and more sat in haphazard piles on the tables, couch, and bed. It was my favorite kind of mess, though.

“Where did you get your hands on so many books?” I wondered, moving from his side to pluck one off of the nearest end table. “ _ The Entire Collected Works of William Shakespeare? _ ”

“I’ve...had a lot of time to find them?” Shion offered. 

Something about his tone made me wary, and I started scrutinizing the shelves, running my fingers over the bindings and scanning the titles. Several times I paused, sure I recognized something that I couldn’t possibly, but reasoned that just because I’d had a copy of that book in West Block didn’t mean it was the only one in existence. It wouldn’t be that unbelievable for Shion to have found another copy somewhere. After the sixth time I felt a familiar cover beneath my fingers, however, my suspicion got the better of me and I pulled  _ Macbeth  _ from its spot.

“Ah, Nezumi,” Shion said, voice catching slightly. “That’s—”

“My copy,” I finished in a whisper, looking at the spot on the inside cover where I’d accidentally spilled a bit of coffee on the corner a week after finding it. I flipped to the middle and found a familiar page missing its corner thanks to an average mouse looking to make a meal out of Shakespeare. “Shion, did you go  _ back _ ?”

A rough noise behind me, like a foot scuffing against the wooden floor, pulled me around. Shion was chewing on his lower lip and his hands were clasped behind his back.

“Shion,” I said more firmly, snapping the book shut. “Did you go back to West Block? For  _ these _ ?”

“I...Yeah,” he said quietly. “I asked Dogkeeper to help me find what I could…”

That idiot. I couldn’t believe he would do something as stupid as returning to West Block alone just to retrieve some old books he’d had nothing to do with until a few months before disaster struck. He’d been no match for West Block at its best, but in ruins the way No. 6 had left it? The survivors should have left it in utter chaos. The fact that Shion was stupid enough to go back,  _ knowing _ how West Block could get, made me want to throw him right off that damned balcony of his. No book was worth that kind of danger.

“You’re mad.” It wasn’t a question.

“How could you be so stupid?” I demanded. “You could’ve been killed going back there.”

“I had Dogkeeper with me,” Shion said, shaking his head. “Nothing happened.”

“You got  _ lucky _ ,” I said irately. “Why would you go back there for some books?”

“I wanted to save them for when you came back,” he said, expression entirely too sincere. “You love your books, and…Well, it was all that was left. Of you, I mean.”

I paused, breath catching in my throat and silencing the curse I’d been about to throw at him. He shrugged helplessly at the look on my face.

“I wanted something to remind me of you while you were gone,” he said.

“You couldn’t have picked something that  _ didn’t  _ involve risking your life?” I said incredulously.

“There wasn’t anything else,” Shion said quietly. “You didn’t exactly leave much behind.”

“It was still stupid,” I said, more for the sake of arguing than anything else. 

“Maybe,” he answered with a small smile. “According to you, I’m always stupid though, so why are you acting so surprised?”

“Hey, that’s not—” I started indignantly, but the growing grin on his face pulled me up short.

Scowling, I threw  _ Macbeth _ at him as hard as I could. He caught it, stumbling back a little.

“You’re annoying,” I grumbled.

“Do you want something to eat?” Shion asked instead of responding, setting the book on the arm of the couch. “I think I have some leftover curry from yesterday…”

“I’m fine,” I said with a shake of my head.

Shion hesitated, eyes flicking between the couch and the bed in the corner of the room. I rolled my eyes.

“Take the bed,” I said, shrugging out of my jacket. “It’s your place, isn’t it?”

“But…”

“Shion, the couch is fine.”

He didn’t look convinced. With a sigh I tossed my jacket onto the couch and covered the space between us in two steps, smirking down at him.

“Unless you want to share that twin, I’m taking the couch,” I said firmly, leaning down slightly so that our gazes were level. 

When he didn’t answer, I took that as the end of the conversation and turned back to the sofa, but I hadn’t yet moved from that spot when he spoke up again.

“I wouldn’t mind.”


	4. Yet Do I Fear Thy Nature

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It Is Too Full o' the Milk of Human Kindness  
> (Act I, Scene V)

Shion fiddled with my hands in the small space between us on the bed. His fingers slid over my knuckles and pressed against my palms, reacquainting me with the callouses I’d noticed earlier. His hands were still a bit smaller than mine, but their touch was soothing nonetheless.

“They’re just hands, Shion,” I said in bemusement. “Why are you so fascinated with them?”

“I like them,” he said vaguely. “You have nice hands.”

I raised an eyebrow at him.

“I’ve killed people with these hands,” I pointed out. “I bet if you look close there’s still blood under my nails.”

Far from being deterred—I knew he wouldn’t be—Shion rolled his eyes and tightened his grip on my fingers.

“You know there’s not,” he scoffed. “Besides, I’ve killed someone too.”

My breath caught in my throat, and without my permission my hands twitched as if trying to push Shion’s away. His small smile fell at the change in my demeanor and he leaned in, a small “v” creasing the skin between his eyebrows.

“Nezumi?” he said curiously. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head. Shion narrowed his gaze.

“If this is about what happened back then--”

“I said it was nothing.”

My tone was sharper than I’d intended and Shion flinched, but he recovered quickly enough to tighten his grip when I tried to pull my hands away. Groaning in exasperation I sat up, unintentionally pulling him with me since he refused to drop my hands, and looked away. He was on the side of the bed closest to the wall, so I was met with a view of the room when trying to avoid his gaze. Our hands broke apart as I turned away.

The light sneaking in through the windows illuminated the book covers nearest them, but threw long shadows beyond to streak the floor. Most of the room was too murky to recognize more than vague shapes, impressions of what was there but no more.

“I thought we agreed a long time ago not to lie to each other.”

He said it as he placed a hand between my shoulderblades, palm burning through the thin material of my shirt. It wasn’t often even now that I could turn my back on someone. It left me too vulnerable and made me uneasy even with my reflexes as sharp they were. Some habits were easier to break than others, after all, and that was one of the latter. However, around Shion all my defenses came down and I never used to realize it until he had a hand on my shoulder or stroking the side of my neck and I was frozen in shock at how close I’d let him get. This time, though I winced reflexively, I wasn’t shocked or afraid. I welcomed the proximity, the contact I’d so long denied myself, solely because it was Shion.

“I’m not lying,” I said.

“You’re lying right now.”

“You’re annoying.”

“So you’ve said.”

Silence followed that. I refused to break it, waiting for his patience to wear out while he absently rubbed by back with a feather-light touch. After a moment the bed dipped as he shifted on it, scooting closer to my side to set his chin on my shoulder.

“Remember when you told me it was pointless to think about what I could’ve done differently?” he said.

I stiffened.

“You said instead of regretting what happened—regretting surviving, that I should do something with that instead. Because what happened wasn’t my fault, but what followed would be.”

“I don’t remember anything like that,” I mumbled.

He sighed. His breath ghosted across my cheek like a warm breeze, smelling faintly of mint from when he’d brushed his teeth.

“Well you said it,” he said. “And I’m telling you now. It wasn’t your fault, and it didn’t change who I am. It was a choice I made on my own. There’s no point in you feeling guilty about something you had no control over.”

“Shion, stop talking,” I whispered.

“No,” he said stubbornly. “If I hadn’t shot him, he would’ve shot you. He’d already hurt you too much for me to see any other way of keeping you safe. I wasn’t going to let you die there.”

“Shut up,” I said, louder.

“That’s what I chose to do with my life,” Shion insisted. “I survived because of you, and I decided that I’d use that gift to save the people I love.”

“Would you give it a rest already?” I snapped, whipping around to glare at him and forgetting that, with his chin on my shoulder, his face was very close to mine already. My lips and nose skated over his cheek and our foreheads knocked together.

With a yelp Shion leaned away, raising a hand to the injured area and looking at me curiously. I groaned but ignored the new throbbing above and behind my eyes in favor of glowering at the other man, who hardly looked intimidated. When did he ever? He didn’t have the best instincts.

“I told you I’m fine,” I snapped. “Your talking is giving me a headache.”

“I think that’s from you head-butting me,” Shion said matter-of-factly.

I raised an eyebrow.

“All I’m saying is that you shouldn’t blame yourself for what happened then,” Shion said. “It wasn’t--”

“It was my fault Shion, and the more you say it wasn’t the more I want to knock your teeth in.”

I didn’t mean to say it. Think it? Oh sure, those words and plenty more were roiling around in my head, all berating him for being so stupid and me for being useless whenever it counted. However I had never planned on letting Shion hear those words, because he wouldn’t understand and he would try to make me feel better about something that I would never and could never feel better about.

Once those words left my lips, more just started spilling out.

“Nezumi, I—”

“I told you when we got there, didn’t I? I told you the place was horrible, and I asked you not to let it change you. But I saw it—I saw it trying to stain you a little more with every step we took. I saw it and I didn’t say anything and I let it happen. It’s one hundred percent my fault, because I knew what we were going into and you didn’t and I didn’t prepare you nearly enough, and when push came to shove it made you a different person. I let that happen, and you telling me it wasn’t my fault doesn’t magically make that true, alright?”

I was breathing heavily by the time I ran out of steam and once again I couldn’t find it in myself to look at him. Silence fell, and for once he didn’t seem inclined to break it. My gaze flicked to the bedside table, where the copy of _Macbeth_ sat with a bookmark tucked between its pages. Unbidden the story in my memory presented itself and reminded me, though I did not pick the book up or look at its pages, of a scene that had always stuck out to me. Rather, a single line.

“ _Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?_ ” I murmured. I didn’t realize that I’d said it out loud until Shion chuckled from where he sat.

“ _No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red,_ ” he whispered, tone horribly flat for such a line. 

I looked around reflexively, startled, to find him smiling a bit sadly at me.

“That’s what you were thinking of, wasn’t it?” he prompted. “It’s one of the only plays I’ve been able to memorize.”

“Your delivery is still shit,” I said.

He ignored me.

“Your hands seem clean enough to me,” Shion said.

He reached out slowly, giving me time to move away if I wanted. I didn’t, and his fingers once again touched mine in my lap. I allowed him to pull me closer, and when his hands moved from mine to slide around my waist I let them, leaning my forehead against his shoulder as he did against my own.

He really made it too easy to forget how intense he could be, even scary. The look in his eyes when he had shot that man had haunted me ever since I saw it, and the moment when he had assaulted Rikiga for harassing me. It was like he’d become a different person, though I supposed it was simply a part of him that didn’t often show, rather than some strange change that overtook him. That was unnerving in its own right.

_Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t._

It didn’t really matter, though. Whether there was blood on our hands or not, whether something darker lurked behind Shion’s guileless charm, whether he really was the snake hiding beneath the flower he seemed to be, none of it mattered. I was me and he was him, and I would go to the ends of the earth and back for Shion as he was, even if it wasn’t how I wanted him to be. The guilt would stay with me, but…

“We both know my hands aren’t clean, Shion,” I sighed. “It’s something I live with. It doesn’t bother me. It’s the same with the Correctional Facility.”

“But that wasn’t—”

“It was,” I interrupted sharply. “But I’ve moved on. I’m still sad that it happened, that there’s blood on your hands because of me, but I’ve moved on. I know you made your own choice, too.”

“Nezumi…”

“It’s okay, Shion,” I said, pulling back to look him in the eyes. I took his face in my hands, smiling slightly at the way his lower lip jutted out. “I really am okay. So just go the fuck to sleep already.”

After a moment in which he scrutinized my face as if hoping the words “I’m full of shit” would be written somewhere on it, his frown smoothed away and he reached up. One of his hands curled around my wrist and the other slid around the back of my neck, more suggesting than pulling me closer.

Taking the invitation for what it was, I leaned in and pressed a long, lasting kiss to his lips. A small noise escaped him and he tilted his head, lips parting easily when I flicked the tip of my tongue over them. He still tasted like mint toothpaste and the vague hint of something sweet that he might’ve had at his mother’s bakery, and I wanted to delve deeper, devour him entirely. From the breathy moan he released into my mouth, I thought that he would probably let me, too.

“Go to sleep, Shion,” I murmured as I pulled back, startled by the thickness of my own voice.

It took him a moment to open his eyes and my throat tightened at the hazy look in them when he did. It would’ve been so easy to pounce on him then, and he was making it damn appealing, but the timing wasn’t right. I’d only just gotten him back, and we might’ve been sharing a bed but that was all either of us had planned on doing. I wasn’t going to jump him the very night of our reunion. Both of us were too emotionally raw just then, both from our conversation and seeing each other at last after two long, lonely years.

“Are you gonna disappear if I do?” he mumbled.

What jumped to my lips first was a sarcastic comment, and second was a simple insult, but I spoke neither of them. Instead I pressed a damp kiss to his forehead and then laid back on the mattress, pulling him with me.

“Not if you don’t,” I said softly.

“Mmkay…”

The only sounds after that were of steady breathing and light snores.


End file.
